Geographies of Gender - Family and Law in Imperial Japan and Colonial Taiwan

Tadashi Ishikawa traces perceptions and practices of gender in the Japanese empire on the occasion of Japan's colonisation of Taiwan from 1895 . In the 1910s, metropolitan and colonial authorities attempted social reform in ways which particularly impacted on family traditions and, therefore, gender relations, paving the way for the politics of comparison within and beyond the empire. In Geographies of Gender, Tadashi Ishikawa delves into a variety of diplomatic issues, colonial and anticolonial discourses, and judicial cases, finding marriage gifts, daughter adoption, and premarital sexual relationships to be sites of tension between norms and ideals among both elite and ordinary men and women. He explores how the Japanese empire became a gendered space from the 1910s through the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, arguing that gender norms were both unsettled and reinforced in ways which highlight the instability of metropole-colony relations.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. The woman question and interwar Japan's international engagements; 2. Empire apart, empire together; 3. Becoming a Taiwanese man; 4. When the hearth was at once warm and cold; 5. Freedom in a state of flux; 6. Stories marginal women wove; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Tadashi Ishikawa is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Central Florida.

Summary

Centering on imperial Japan and colonial Taiwan under Japanese rule since 1895, Geographies of Gender traces perceptions and changing practices of gender across the empire. Tadashi Ishikawa demonstrates how the Japanese empire became a gendered space in public debates and judicial practices concerning family and marriage.

Product details

• Authors: Tadashi Ishikawa, Tadashi (University of Central Florida) Ishikawa, Ishikawa Tadashi
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2024
• EAN: 9781009534178
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0953417-8
• No. of pages: 295
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Law > General, dictionaries; Japan, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Taiwan, 20th Century, HISTORY / Asia / General, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, c 1800 to c 1900, Colonialism & imperialism, Legal History, Colonialism and imperialism, Asian History, Gender studies, gender groups, 1868–1912 (Japanese Meiji period), c 1910 to c 1945 (Korean Japanese colonial period)